A Link to the Past
Chapter Twenty Four: Prisoners
There was no way for Link to guess how long he had been unconscious inside that cell before his eyes opened again, and he hoped that everything that happened after being taken back to Hyrule Castle was just a horrible nightmare. Yeah, that had to be it; the young man must've been knocked out in the struggle, and now he was locked up in the dungeon… this place sure looked like a dungeon with the torches and iron bars, but… but no… no, the two guards standing outside the metal door were definitely not the typical castle guards. They were alligators, just like their leader, Daira, and now Link was locked up in the cages underneath the Village of Outcasts while Agahnim and Ganondorf were… doing whatever their plan was.
"Hey, you're awake." A deep voice said from off to the left. "Are you alright? You've been asleep for hours."
He was alone in this cell, that was the good news when Link turned his head to see who the voice belonged to, but this didn't stop the young man from being visibly startled when he saw the red skin and sharpened fangs of the occupant of the cell next to his. This creature's head had spines around the ears and forehead kind of like a Zora, with eyes that were so yellow they were almost glowing like the last embers of a fire, but then except for the curved claws that were at the end of lengthy red fingers, most of this monster's features were hidden underneath its clothes. Strange choice of attire as well, since the design and material used almost made it look like a dress, sort of like the common ones that girls in Kakariko Village would wear while they did chores or tended their shops.
It was no village girl that was kneeling on the floor of the next cell with clawed hands holding onto the bars, however, but one of the strangest and most unsettling creatures that Link had ever seen. For a moment he needed to remind himself that so far everyone he met had once been a normal person who was somehow transformed in the same manner that caused himself to become a rabbit, but this thing looked like something out of a nightmare. Depending on how hungry this thing was, the young man was going to have to be careful about getting too close to the bars that divided their cells, lest it try to grab him and pull him in close for the kill, so Link scooted his way slowly over to the far wall and leaned up against it.
"What is this place?" He asked, looking at the creature and then the guards. "What happened here to make everyone like… this?"
"I don't know." The red creature replied, letting go of the bars and sitting down itself. "When I first got here I thought I was just confused; I wandered out of the dark forest trying to find my way back to the village, and then Daira had me thrown into this cell after a caused a few accidents on the surface."
"Accidents?!" The guard nearest to Link exclaimed, almost starting to laugh. "You burned down half the village, and you call it accidents?! I think the freak needs more time on the rack, how about you?"
The other guard nodded, taking the keys off his belt and unlocking the red creature's cell while its occupant cried out in fear, retreating to the back of the cell and cowering like a frightened animal. The alligator guard walked in without fear, the other one laughing while his companion first backhanded the red creature before forcing it to stand up by twisting its red arm behind its back, and then making it walk forward out of the cell. It tried to push back against leaving the cell, and then grabbing onto the edge of the doorway with its free hand, the whole time begging them not to put it on the rack again, to which the guards just laughed before bashing the red creature's head against the bars with an echoing clang.
It continued to call for help while the guard forced it to walk down the corridor, all of the other guards laughing and mocking the red creature as it passed by, but then all this commotion faded away pretty quickly once the prisoner reached the end of the corridor, as if this kind of thing was a regular occurrence. The longer Link was in this place the more he was starting to grasp just how much danger he was in, starting with how any minute the guards could take him away for some kind of awful torture as well, and being unarmed and outnumbered there wouldn't be very much he could do about it. No, the young man needed to escape… not only that, but he needed to get Zelda's crystal back from Daira.
"Aw, what's the matter, bunny-rabbit?" The remaining guard asked, turning toward him. "Did your friend get taken away? Are you lonely? Don't worry, I'll keep you entertained."
Suddenly moving away from the door, the alligator guard reached up and pulled one of the metal torches from its mount on the stone wall, waving it aggressively against the bars of Link's cell so that he was forced to scoot away. Now laughing as he used one hand to remove his key ring and unlock the door, the alligator guard pulled the metal entrance open with a sharp squeak, holding the torch out in front of himself and waving it around to force the young man back against the far wall of the cell. It was like the guard was playing some kind of twisted game with him, waiting until Link would try to move a certain direction to avoid the fire, and then swinging the torch against the bars or just in the air so that the flames would almost catch on his fur.
"Careful, bunny-rabbit, watch the torch now." The alligator guard laughed, waving the torch again to back him into a corner. "We wouldn't want to burn off those big ears, now, would we?"
Clearly the answer to this question was yes, since the guard laughed right after and then thrust the torch right at the young man, leaving him no choice but to make a desperate act. Since none of his captors still knew about the hidden glove, mail, and flipper that Link was wearing, he waited until the torch was coming right at him before crouching down and rushing right toward the alligator guard. Catching his tormenter off guard with a sudden burst of speed, the young man had to run right into the torch, knocking it from the guard's hands and then ramming his shoulder into the alligator guard's stomach so hard that he was lifted from the ground.
Crash! Carrying the guard back across the cell and ramming him into the bar wall at the front, the wind was knocked out of his tormenter who sunk to the floor after impact, but Link wasn't about to give him the chance to recover. Picking up the metal torch, the young man swung it into the side of the guard's head, stunning him, and then he grabbed the partly opened door and swung it toward him as hard as he could, jamming the alligator guard's elongated snout right into one of the square holes. Whack! Whack! Whack! The guard's trapped mouth made it so he couldn't call for help while the prisoner beat him senseless with the metal torch until he lost consciousness.
Everyone in these dungeons must've been used to hearing such commotion, since no one came running to see what was happening, but it was only a matter of time before his partner got back, so as soon as the young man caught his breath he took the key ring from his tormenter's belt, and now… and now how was he going to do this? As said before, not only did Link need to escape from this dungeon, but he also needed to get that crystal back from Daira, and… and even though they had just met it just didn't seem right to leave that frightened red creature there to be tortured like that. Before anything else, however, the young man needed to get through every gate of this corridor and back into the main area of the dungeon.
There were three gates up ahead, each patrolled by two more of the alligator guards, and there were more prisoners in almost every cell in between, so… wait a minute, maybe that could work to his advantage. After all, why would all the different kinds of animal people locked in these cages try to stop him from escaping, especially if they got the same chance as well. Just with his own area, it didn't take long for one of the guards to walk away, leaving his companion alone, but was Link fast enough to get the door unlocked, and club the remaining alligator guard before he could call for help? The answer was no, since the door squeaked really bad as soon as he started to move it, and of course the guard instantly turned around to face him.
"And what do we have here?" The alligator guard snorted, folding his arms across his chest. "If you were that eager to get…
Suddenly his words were interrupted as the prisoner in the cell behind him reached through the bars and grabbed him, giving Link the opportunity to get through the squeaking door and then strike with the metal torch. As with the other guards he went down after a few good hits to the head, and then of course the young man started freeing the other prisoners as soon as the threat was over. It was actually a good thing that the dungeons were constantly filled with the sounds of screaming and fighting as the guards tormented prisoners all day and night, because it allowed Link and his slowly growing group to sneak up on and overpower each of their captors one by one, each of them ready to run into the next area to get the rabbit by himself, but completely unprepared to be grabbed by several others.
"Do any of you actually know where we are?" The young man asked once all the guards inside the corridor had been subdued. "Does anyone know how to get back to Hyrule?"
Many of the prisoners were just as confused about that as he was, some saying that they wandered through the forest and just ended up there, while others had done something to make Ganondorf angry but had been in this sunset world for years before that, but no one really understood what had happened to them, or what it was about this place that made them all transform into animals or other creatures when all of them used to be people. Clearly there were no more answers, at least not to be found in the dungeons underneath the Village of Outcasts, so now there was just escaping and getting the crystal back.
"Keep sneaking up on the guards, do it one at a time." Link instructed, now that they had several sets of keys. "Free everyone that you can, and then head toward the forest… hopefully we can find whatever brought most of you here and it takes us back as well."
His last question for them before parting ways was where the rack was located, since the young man wasn't about to leave that red creature to suffer while everyone else got away. That, and he figured that someone as sick and twisted as Daira would likely be where the most torture was happening. The other prisoners advised against it, but did not try and stop him, and now Link was alone as he headed out of the corridor and off to the right… down into another deep part of the dungeons while the others headed back toward the surface… hopefully he would be able to rescue Zelda and the red creature, and then escape as well.